


hell of a trip

by TheAndromedaRecord



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blindness, Canon Compliant, Gen, Local Dumb Stoner Wakes Up In The Apocalypse, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Drug Use, at least so far, jonah magnus is of course a bastard, meet the Real Elias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 08:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21317143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAndromedaRecord/pseuds/TheAndromedaRecord
Summary: Jonah Magnus has moved beyond the need for a body, so he leaves Jon and Martin one last present.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood & Elias Bouchard, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 28
Kudos: 210





	hell of a trip

He is awake, and his eyes are not open. He has no eyes to open.

He gasps, his breaths ragged and arrhythmic, on the ground. He’s almost forgotten how to breathe. His body hasn’t been his own for quite some time. It was comforting, almost, having the other consciousness to shield him from the world, even amidst the horror of watching what his hands did. 

Now there is no barrier between him and a screaming world of fear. He knew about the apocalypse as soon as his eyes left, and now he can feel it in the thrumming of the ground and the wail of the sky. The screams of animals or humans or something grate against his ears and the cloying stench of rot fills his lungs. He can’t see, but he doesn’t need his eyes to fear. 

He runs his hands over his face in clutching as spasmodic motions. He’s aged. The years seemed to fly by, like a constant high. He’s gotten a haircut—his hair no longer brushes his chin. 

With shaky, out-of-practice legs, Elias Bouchard stands up. His body is his, and it’s a hell of a trip. Way beyond what any drug could incite. 

Someone screams above him. Where the hell is he? Is there a floor above him, or was someone swallowed by the sky? Is he on a sidewalk or in a basement?

A breeze flows by, carrying the carrion scent of blood that cuts fresh through the stench of decay. Outside, then. 

The world is breaking apart, and it’s his fault. He remembers writing the chant that was to be read. 

His hands still hold the sensation of a cold metal pipe. He can’t tell if the blood in his mouth is his, a product of the apocalypse, or a memory of someone he killed. 

Elias chokes back a sob. He has no idea what to do. He has no idea how to use his body. Elias has a very reliable way of dealing with stress, but he doubts he’ll be able to find a supply of it. 

He takes a few steps and trips over something soft. He doesn’t want to think about what it is.

“Help!” he cries, then immediately regrets it. If anyone can hear him, they probably aren’t friendly. There isn’t anyone left who will help him.

Gertrude. He killed Gertrude.

“You bastard!” someone yells. He recognizes that voice, and just has enough time to register it when he’s slammed from the side with a punch. It brings him to the ground, and as the asphalt scrapes against his skin, he realizes he’s wearing a suit. He never wears suits. He gasps and his elbows sting.

Someone is on top of him, someone much larger than him, and another fist drives into his gut, driving the air from Elias’s lungs.

“Please,” Elias wheezes. He tries to throw his assailant off of him, but he’s blind and weak, so he makes a gesture of surrender.

An elbow slams into his head, and Elias sees stars despite his blindness. He wails pathetically.

“Martin,” another voice says, weary and worn. Elias knows this one. This is the voice that shattered the world. The Archivist. “Look at his eyes.”

The blows pause. Elias would be sobbing if he could shed tears. 

“Who are you?” the first voice—Martin—whispers. Elias dimly remembers Martin. He remembers hurting Martin. Or was it him? Him and the other one blur together now. When two minds share a body for so long, what’s the point in separating them.

“Elias,” Elias replies. “I—I don’t think we’ve met, actually.”

“You’re Elias,” Martin repeats. “The real Elias.”

Elias frowns. He didn’t feel fake these past few years—he was still there, and it was the same body. He was still Elias, and that makes the whole thing much more horrifying. But he nods.

The Archivist laughs, a sound totally devoid of mirth or joy. 

“Sure,” the Archivist says in a monotone. “This might as well happen. Martin, if you’re going to insist on sparing monsters, you may as well spare this one.”

“You’re not like him,” Martin says hotly. “You didn’t have a choice—“

“I didn’t have a choice!” Elias objects. “P-please don’t kill me, I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know where I am…”

“You’re in Scotland,” the Archivist says dully. “At the end of the world.”

“Okay, stop! Everyone stop!” Martin cries. “This is not the end of the world. We can still figure something out, right?”

Elias curls on his side and tries to take deep breaths. The memories keep coming back to him in kaleidoscope fragments. He remembers the Archive. He remembers running the Archive—but it wasn’t him. No, Elias Bouchard doesn’t have the first idea how to run an Archive.

“I’m sorry,” Elias whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Maybe if there had been some way, some way to escape, I could have, I, I,”

The Archivist cuts him off with that laugh, that bitter and mirthless laugh.

“Oh, this was going to happen eventually. No matter who the puppets were. I’m not sure what’s worse: being complicit or being insignificant.”

“Stop talking like that,” Martin says sternly. “We are going back to the apartment. There has to be a solution in the tapes. And then we’re going to have a plan.”

Martin always has a plan. Elias has felt surprise only a few times over these intolerable years, and since Gertrude died—since he’d _murdered_ Gertrude—Martin had been the only one to cause it. 

“We’ll bring him,” says the Archivist. “He might be useful.”

“Jon,” Martin says softly, “are you sure?”

“We can’t be picky with our allies.”

Elias would weep in relief if he had eyes. Two hands grab his. One is soft and pudgy, one bony and marred by twisted scarred tissue. Martin and Jon haul Elias to his feet.

_I am Elias Bouchard,_ he realizes. _I am Elias Bouchard, and nothing more._


End file.
